Valerie Hoff former CNN and 11Alive reporter dies from cancer after forced to resign using N word during private social media conversations with a source.
A former CNN anchor who had her journalism career preempted after using the ‘N-word‘ on social media in a ‘private social media chat’ has passed away from lung cancer at age 62.
Valerie Hoff Decarlo, a veteran Atlanta-based reporter who worked as a co-host on CNN during the 1990’s and 11Alive in the early 2000’s, died last week, her husband Derrick DeCarlo told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He described her as ‘a strong, capable, loving woman and a wonderful mother’ and ‘a force with everything she did.’
Was former CNN and 11Alive reporter a victim of political correctness? Or for lack of professionalism?
DeCarlo spent seven years at CNN, first as as a writer and reporter, and eventually a live news anchor.
After CNN, DeCarlo spent 18 years with NBC-affiliate 11Alive in Atlanta, Georgia.
Her husband said she left CNN for 11Alive in 1999 in pursuit of better pay.
DeCarlo split between working as an anchor and consumer reporter at NBC-affiliate WXIA in Atlanta from 1999 to 2017, according to her LinkedIn.
But it all came to a head in 2017, following the release of a private Twitter exchange with a would-be source leading to the reporter being forced to resign.
Acting on behalf of 11Alive in April 2017, DeCarlo sought permission from a social media user to use a clip of a white police officer punching a black motorist.
The user, a black man, used the phrase ‘news n***as’ to describe journalists in other tweets, leading DeCarlo to use the term herself.
In a DM to the man, she wrote: ‘please call this news n****.’
The post was quickly reshared and went viral.
Unwitting racism?
‘If she is bold enough to say it to me being an African American then I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first time she has used that word,’ the man told AJC at the time.
DeCarlo was initially censured with a two-week suspension only to be forced to resign shortly after according to her husband.
DeCarlo filed a suit against the station later that year, alleging she was wrongfully terminated. It was later settled out of court.
The journalist told the Journal-Constitution at the time: ‘It was incredibly stupid, but I can’t take it back now.’
Kelly Crawford, a longtime friend of DeCarlo’s, added: ‘She was obviously disappointed.’
DeCarlo was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2013 but managed to recover after a double mastectomy.
The disease came back this year ‘like a freight train,’ her husband said, noting that this time it was stage-four lung cancer.
After the Twitter controversy, DeCarlo tried to find her way back into the industry as a citizen reporter through her own blog, which has since been deleted.
To her credit, DeCarlo managed according to her husband to become a successful day trader.
‘She never had a losing year,’ Derrick told the Journal-Constitution.
The former corporate news reporter is survived by her husband and two sons, Nicholas and Jehnya.
